Iconic fashion photographer Prabuddha Dasgupta was remembered as a philosopher, visionary, wordsmith and a perfectionist by his friends and admirers at a special memorial organised at National Gallery of Modern Art here on Saturday.
Addressing the gathering at NGMA, where Mr. Dasgupta literally grew up as his father was heading the institution, Hollywood film-maker Mira Nair confessed that she became his fan when she saw his work on Kamasutra in 1994. “I requested him to spare time to come to the location where we were shooting our film Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love . He had never done this kind of work before. He never liked waking up at 4 a.m. but nevertheless he took a number of images. After a week, I told him we need to promote the film through the images. What I saw was an eye of a woman and parts of people. There was no sign of Rekha or any other actor. So I looked at him and he looked back at me. So in an elegant way we departed our separate ways like friends.”
Describing him as an activist, Mira said he worked with street children. “I brought 50 copies of his work which captured what people do not see on the streets. He took life lightly. When I read obituaries which described him as a fashion photographer I got offended. He was much beyond this. When he did nude photography during 1980s he was excommunicated from India. He always wanted to push the envelope. He was never strident, never raised his voice. He died at Alibaug in the presence of his wife Tania, daughters Aleeya and Amaaya. If Prabuddha were there he would not have allowed us to wallow in sorrow but move on.”
When the film-maker met him last, he presented her a catalogue. “I realised that he and his brother Pradeep had an incredible lineage. It was an extraordinary new work.”
In an emotionally choked voice, noted photographer Pradeep Dasgupta shared anecdotes about his younger brother. He sentences were punctuated with silence as he tried to regain his composure. He had first decided to address the gathering extempore but later changed his mind.
“It (speaking extempore) would have been difficult. He was my kid brother even though he was 56. This (National Gallery of Modern Art) is where we lived. We would play hide-and-seek and cops-and-robbers. Even later on we played hide-and-seek. He was a bratty little brother and I was a tyrannical elder brother. He never stopped playing.”
Describing his brother as lazy, Pradeep said whenever he visited his house, Aleeya would run to one corner of the house and lock herself in a room. “Later I came to know that my brother had told her to eat her food or else the ‘bogey man’ would come. I was the bogey man! He was never a photographer until he came to my darkroom. Once he borrowed a heavy camera from me because it would have pleased his client. But in the hurry he forgot to ask me how to operate it. So when it came to capturing pictures he realised he could not use the heavy machine. Instead of working on it quietly, he asked did anyone know how to handle it. His client almost died of a heart attack.”
Noted photographer Raghu Rai said when he saw Prabuddha’s work on nature he was desperate to call him. “He was a typical Indian who knew when to jump the queue. Though all of us are waiting for our departure, he broke the queue. What is unfair is that he was much younger than us.”
